These guys were the first real synth-pop band (it's no accident the aforementioned debut album was produced by Robert Moog collaborator Robert Margouleff), but -- as you can hear from the above -- their music was more than just space-age noodling; at heart, they were an old fashioned sort of good-timey outfit in the manner of The Lovin' Spoonful, and just as charming.
I actually saw them open for The Byrds(!) at the Village Gate(!!) in 1966(!!!), and it would not be an exaggerration to say they stole the show. They were beyond tight, charismatic (snazziest dressed band I ever saw) and (more important) had tons of great original songs.
They also did a sort of bouncy remake of "It's All Over Now" that was actually better than the Stones' hit version; to this day, I can play the piano part from their arrangement, and sometime before I die I swear I'm either gonna record it solo or teach some friends to play it in front of an audience.
Bottom line, it made an indelible impression on the then-teenaged me, to the point that years later, I contacted Paul Conly, the band's ace piano and synth guy, via their (still active today) band website, to ask if any live tape of the band performing it had survived. (The answer, alas, was no.)
Incidentally, a very good recording of a full Lothar set, live at Amherst College in 1969, was eventually released on a 2020 CD (titled Machines, after their cover of the Manfred Mann hit of the same name) and I highly recommend it; you can hear the entire thing for free over at YouTube HERE.
3 comments:
Totally different from my preconceived idea about their music . My only reference was Good Vibrations. I am going to have to look thru my collection for something similar, at one point I was intrigued by electronic compositions - Jan Hammer, Ponty if those qualify.
rob
It’s a really lovely album.
Steve, wish I would have posted this yesterday. My friend Chris Young is a research librarian/archivist and runs the website called Downstate Sounds. It's about IL bands that aren't from the Chicago area.
He did a great story on the TWO Lothar and the Hand People bands; the famous one and one from Illinois. Great story.
https://www.downstatesounds.com/search?q=lothar
Bob in (guess where?) IL
Post a Comment